


Smiling

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Miscommunication [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Miscommunication, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, dont @ me, i project my emotional incompetence onto virgil and logan, so like canon, useless gays dont want to talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Logan is pretty sure Roman is laughing at him. Virgil would rather talk about Literally Anything Else.





	Smiling

Once was a fluke.

Twice was a coincidence

Three times was a pattern.

Theoretically, Logan supposed he could have ignored it. It wasn’t interfering with any of their duties, and it was an entirely unobtrusive behavior, so there was really no reason that he should be devoting so much time to thinking about it.

But Roman just would not stop  _smiling_.

It was inexplicably infuriating.

Any topic Logan mentioned, regardless of content, was met with the same amused expression. And Logan felt incredibly foolish for taking so long to notice in the first place - by the time he became conscious of the fact that Roman was doing it, he realized he could not place the behaviors starting point.

“…Of course, it never even occurs to most people that our numbering system is in base ten while our timekeeping is in base 60,” said Logan, absent minded filling in the schedule in front of him. Roman was next to him at the table, ostensibly there to give input on the schedule for what amount and duration of time slots were needed for brainstorming. But then he had mentioned that the use of sixty seconds to a minute seemed arbitrary, and here they were.

“The Babylonians didn’t even originally use base 60 themselves; two very close communities used base 10 and base 12 respectively and it was making it impossible to trade without complicated recalculations for every transaction. Using the next common denominator for a new base is a bit of a heavy-handed solution, but it was obviously successful enough that we still use it as the basis for clocks more than six thousand years later. And it would be almost impossible to move over to some kind of metric timekeeping system now what with,-” Logan turned to Roman as he spoke, fully expecting to be greeted with a glazed over expression of disinterest.

But Roman was leaning on his folded arms, smiling, the corner of his mouth tucked into his teeth as if to restrain himself from laughter. Logan bristled slightly.

“What?” he said defensively.

Roman tilted his head, smile twitching slightly. “ _What_ what?”

“Why are you laughing?” said Logan.

Another twitch. “I’m not,”

“You are not actively laughing, but you are clearly amused by something,” Logan retorted.

Roman rolled his eyes and sighed, but the smile stayed firmly in place, “Truly, I am not laughing at you,”

Logan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I did not say i believed you were laughing at  _me_ ,”

Roman tossed his hands in the air. “You’ve caught me,” he said theatrically, “I am simply delighted by your nerdy monologuing. Nothing amuses me more than the history of clocks,”

Logan gave him a deadpan look. Roman kept a straight face for no more than three seconds before the grin overtook his face again.

Logan sighed. “Regardless, your input on the schedule was valuable, inasmuch as you gave it. Thank you for cooperating,”

Roman’s grin widened. “Anytime, Albert Sunshine, ” he replied, seeming uncharacteristically sincere.

Logan felt an unexplainable sensation just above his sternum, rather reminiscent of the pressure of inhaling helium. He coughed slightly to dislodge the presumed obstruction.

“…Yes, thank you then,” he finished, gathering his notebook and pens. He suddenly wanted very much to not be in the kitchen.

And the incidences of the confounding smiling continued. During movies when he described the special effects, during videos when he provided exposition; anytime Logan spoke, Roman seemed to be there, quirking his mouth like he thought Logan was telling a particularly humorous joke.

It was incredibly frustrating.

“I do not understand his behavior at all, ” Logan said, sitting at his desk, stabbing the notebook in front of him with his pen, perhaps with more force than was strictly necessary.

“I really don’t know why you’re telling me this,” said Virgil from behind him, his voice pained. Logan could almost picture him staring longingly at the door.

“I cannot tell Roman, as he is the source of my conundrum, and any attempts to confide in Patton usually result in tears of gratitude. You are the most feasible option,” he turned his words over in his mind, realized Virgil might take offense at the implication he was the last choice, then amended. “And also because I value your input,”

Virgil snorted.

“I simply cannot find an explanation,” Logan continued his earlier train of thought, “I can only think he must be mocking me, but the occurrences are under such varied circumstances that I cannot fathom what specific topic it is that is so comical,”

He paused, then frowned.

“Unless it is simply my speech alone he finds laughable,”

He suddenly had an unaccountably sour taste in his mouth. He wondered if Patton had added any citrus to the food at dinner.

“You’re  _really_ invested in something that might not even be happening, Mr. Spreadsheets,” said Virgil, and his voice gave the sense he was grasping for conversational straws.

“You haven’t noticed at all?,” Logan said, wondering why he sounded oddly desperate. He shook his head as if to dispel the sensation. “Nevermind, that was a foolish question. Roman could shave his head and you would not notice if Patton was in the room,”

Virgil sputtered indignantly.

“I-Look,” Virgil said, “I didn’t know i was dating Patton for weeks. I don’t think I have the skills to help you with your crush on Roman,”

Logan froze.

He stared at the paper in front of him, which was suddenly utterly indecipherable. What was he even writing? He had not faintest idea.

“Please repeat what you just said,” said Logan, and his voice was thready like he’d been holding his breath.

There was a long pause.

“I- Ok? I don’t know how to help you with your crush on Roman?”

Logan slowly placed his pen down and spun his chair around so he was almost facing Virgil. He ran his hand down his face.

“Well, that is inconvenient,” he said flatly.

“I- I’m sorry?” said Virgil, “I know you said you wanted my input,-”

“No,” said Logan tiredly, “I mean that it is inconvenient that i have feelings for Roman,”

Virgil stared at him in disbelief.

“Are you serious?” he said finally.

“Well, it can hardly be considered an agreeable event when we have established he is mocking me,”

“You know, I don’t think I remember establishing that at all,” said Virgil, who was beginning to look rather like his face was going to split in half. “You didn’t know you had a crush on Roman until I said it just now, did you?”

“I hardly find this funny,” said Logan. He was embarrassed to admit that his voice had taken on a barely noticeable but still distinct tone of whining.

“Oh, I beg to differ,” replied Virgil gleefully, “You and Roman gave me  _so much shit_  for what happened with Patton-,”

“That was mostly Roman,” Logan said weakly.

“ ’ _Really, Virgil, any number of data points should have tipped you off about the nature of your relationship_ ,’ ” said Virgil in an incredibly mocking robotic voice.

“Yes,  _yes_ , ok, I am incredibly dense, is that what you want to hear you insufferable braggart?”

“-At least I knew I  _liked_ Patton,” Virgil continued, oblivious to Logan’s interruption.

“ _Vir_ gil,” Logan pleaded.

“Ok, ok, ok. I’m done, I’m done, I’ll be serious,”

Virgil did not look remotely serious.

“Well, I can see you’re going to be no help at all,”

“That is absolutely accurate,”

The revelation did not solve Logan’s problem. In fact, Logan would have given almost anything to go back to before, when he was blissfully unaware of his…  _feelings_.

Because now, rather than simply having inexplicable reactions to Roman’s presence that he could foist off on any number of other factors, he was acutely,  _painfully_ aware that he found everything Roman did to be obnoxiously charming.

And Roman was still. Always.  _Smiling_.

Logan looked up from the Rubik’s cube he was fiddling with, tuning out the show tune playlist Roman was singing along to in the living room. He noticed suddenly that there was one less voice than before, and looked up to find Roman standing in the middle of the room, grinning absently at Logan, looking like he’d simply stopped in the middle of his dancing.

Suddenly irritated, Logan set the cube down on the coffee table entirely too loudly, and Roman jumped.

“ _What_ , precisely,” said Logan hotly, “do you find so  _incalculably hilarious_  about  _everything I do_?”

Roman frowned, going on the defensive. “What on  _Earth_ are you talking about?”

“The  _smiling_!,” Logan burst out, “the laughing, the mocking, what am I doing or saying or  _being_ that you feel the need to be  _constantly laughing at me_?”

Roman’s face shifted from guarded to bewildered.

“You think I’m laughing at you?” he said flatly.

“What  _else_ would you be doing?” Logan said incredulously.

Roman stared at him for a long moment.

His mouth twitched.

“Don’t you dare!” said Logan, standing up from the chair and pointing in what he hoped was a sufficiently threatening way.

But Roman’s face was cleaving into a grin as bright as the sun, in spite of the fact that he, for once, looked like he really was trying not to smile.

“You’re  _adorable_ ,” Roman laughed as a blush began to spread across his cheeks.

Logan’s mouth dropped open.

“I-  _what_?”

“Adorable,” said Roman, grinning as he turned to look Logan in the eye, “You are simply enchanting and precious and adorable, and when you go on little rants you wave your hands around and get incredibly excited and just now when you were doing your puzzle you had your tongue stuck between your teeth and it was the most endearing thing I have ever seen,”

Heat was creeping up Logan’s neck and the hand he’d been pointing at Roman had inexplicably moved to cover his mouth.

“You somehow manage to talk like you’re giving a lecture and writing a love letter at the same time,” continued Roman, still beaming. “You get so excited you forget to breathe sometimes and your sentences get wheezy at the end and,” he scrubbed his hand across his face and laughed, “how did you pick up nothing from theater at all it’s like you’ve never  _heard_ of breath support, you  _nerd_ ,”

“Nerd” somehow managed to come out of Romans mouth with the same intonation that most people ascribed to word “darling” and Logan thought for sure that his heart had migrated to his throat, in spite of the fact that should be physically impossible.

“You are…” Roman lifted his hand, a gesture in Logan’s direction, “… utterly bewitching, and I find when you are in the room you are the only thing i can look at,”

He took the hand Logan had covered his mouth with in his own.

“I’m smiling because you make me  _happy_ , Galileo Gallifrey. I hardly think that warrants this level of ire,”

Logan looked between Roman’s still beaming face and the hand that was gently grasping his, finding that his vocabulary was utterly inadequate for any of the emotions he was experiencing.

“That is…” He cleared his throat, then did it again. “Very satisfactory,” he finished lamely, voice slightly strangled.

Roman’s smile, impossibly, seemed to widen even more, and he pressed an adoring kiss to the inside of Logan’s wrist.

And, really, how could Logan possibly respond in any other way but to kiss that infuriating,  _confounding_ smile off of Roman’s face?

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about sanders sides at tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com


End file.
